this post was submitted on 10 May 2025
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Thank software engineers for that.
The real concern for computers is the Year 2038 problem.
Just like y2k, the irony is the problem is already solved but that won’t help us.
Datetime types have long since converted to longer data types that will not have such a problem for thousands of years. APIs have long since converted to return those longer data types. The problem is solved.
But the backward compatible 32bit datetime types are still there. Too many programs still use them. Too many embedded devices don’t include “extra features that waste space “, industrial devices are far more widespread but don’t get updates for many years. Worst of all, we have no idea what works and what doesn’t. We’re doomed to repeat the same crisis as y2k, where we’ll need to evaluate all our software, roll out patches, worry about everything falling down.
Modern software development has made it easier than ever to keep everything up to date, to prevent so many issues from ever happening. Year 2038 is an unnecessary problem. But human nature is to let it fester until the problem erupts. We’re doomed
It's the same problem, though. "Oh no, we need to store 4 digits instead of 2" vs "Oh no, we need to store int64 instead of int32". Or y'know, just use RFC3999 if you can't do 64-bit. It's a tedious lift, but it's not a crisis. People that need to change will do.
You might read up on the everlasting prevalence of ancient COBOL still running too much of our banking and government. the same software that caused y2k is still there
The problem is all the existing IoT devices etc that haven’t pre-planned for this. It’s a safe bet a lot of consumer devices with embedded systems haven’t planned for this and likely don’t have user friendly upgrade paths.
lots of cars too, probably. Its totally not unreasonable for a car to be on the road for 10/15/20 years.
I used to work at a major iot company. While, yeah, some devices will probably be left behind, most would've had this covered from the outset. The ones left behind were never intended to make it that long anyhow.
Oh we're absolutely all going to die because there's literally no way to move some businesses off software developed in the 1980s they're addicted to it.